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indcution heaters for loosing nuts what is your ex opinion

09-12-2013, 02:37 AM

this was asked on another automotive forum but no respond
See few of these around, these induction heating nut loosing gadgets. Anyone used them professionally in their shop? worth to get ? these seems to be home use ones not sure how good they are. Don't want to store oxy-acetylene at home and the oxygen-mapp gas ones are never strong enough. tried welding on nuts to broken bolt trick 50% works and pain when doing it under car.

OTC 6650
Mini-Ductor
BoltBusters
Fluxeon

I think miller have one for pipe heating for 25K which is out of range for avg Joes

I just use my O/A torch for this purpose. I don't mind storing the O/A tanks at home. The torch is handy for cutting steel and heating it for bending it too. If you are doing much metal working at all, then an O/A rig is almost indispensable.
What's wrong with storing O/A tanks at home?

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access is the main thing when working under car without lift. I can wield O/A torch novice. but hard to do that under a car trying to access something that is in tight spot (safely). Acetylene explodes as far as what I learn when in school over 15PSI. Actually still remembers some young chap blown up in his car when he was going to work and had a small O/A tank inside.

But seen these induction things in youtube, that these things heat / some even melt metal. just not sure how durable they are when it is made for home use. Still not cheap price avg about $600, that is why asking around if some one had experiences to share on this matter. Last thing I wanted is to spend that kind of $ end up with a piece of paper weight after first use.

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. Acetylene explodes as far as what I learn when in school over 15PSI.

Actually still remembers some young chap blown up in his car when he was going to work and had a small O/A tank inside.

Thanks

That's what regulators are for. Just keep the pressure set below 15 PSI and you will be OK.

Ditch the car and get you a pick up truck. Or at least you could get an external cargo carrier that fits on a receiver hitch to carry it outside of the car. I have 2 pick ups, so transporting acetylene is not a problem for me.

I have not seen or used one of these induction heaters you mention, so cannot comment on how good they are.

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they have the ProHeat it's a little out of range for my price as home DIYer and way over kill for what I needed it for... Maybe they made a lower end attachment to my Dynasty 200DX would be nice... send me a testing sample if you do every made and market such product

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what about just getting a welding machine take the ground and connect it to one end of the piece you want to heat then take the posistive lead and use a welding rod to touch the nut or bolt. make a good connection that way you don't get any sparks I have done this before and it worked 50% of the time.the other 50% I have to spray it down with ero kroil plus heat to get them off.

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Another way similar to what tommy2069 mentioned is -IF you have stick welder. Surf Fleabay and find a carbon arc torch these can often be found cheap. Hook up the ground to the vehicle- with the Power OFF- you open the carbon arc carbons wide enough to slip over the nut or bolt you want to heat. Close the carbons tightly around the stubborn fastener. Have a buddy flip the welder on -if the carbons are tight-there will be no arcing and is seconds you have a glowing red fastener ready for removal. This technique works well for those spots where you are a bit reluctant to shove an AO flame.

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OK thanks for the feed back guys, just for some closure to this thread.

I bought the mini-ductor MD-700 I think. worked nice on quasi stuck CV shaft bolts. Tested on a bolt, it did heat the bolt/nut up to cherry red about a minute.

Saw that RMCybernetics and the fluxeon free ones. But didn't have time or the equipment to make one at that time of posting, it was about to get cold to work outside laying on the ground, Sept/ late Oct I think by the time I got all the car parts and needed to get things replace and fast. Maybe one of these days will make one between.

Was hoping maybe miller makes one as an accessory. These welding power sources should have enough power to even do a 2kw metal melting furnace. But being a welding company probably this is not their focus.